


Terms & Conditions

by Penned



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Mob, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Dark, F/M, M/M, Murder, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Possessive Bucky Barnes, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-18 23:44:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7335808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penned/pseuds/Penned
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark is desperate and trusts too easily. Bucky Barnes takes advantage of that.</p><p>A mob AU with no powers, featuring a very dark, very off-kilter Bucky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Terms & Conditions

**Author's Note:**

> There's nothing too explicit here but please read the warnings. This is not a happy fic.

He sits up carefully and runs his hand over his face. The night’s activity is still thrumming through his system and his body aches with repeated use. He wants to leave, wants to get up and walk out and never come back but the arm around his waist is a cold, metal vice keeping him in the bed.

It is _the_ bed. Never _their_ bed. Tony won’t admit to himself that they share anything of worth.

The door he stares at is a taunting reminder of the freedom he lacks.

“You going somewhere, doll?”

Tony tries not to move, not to show any sign of his thoughts as he feels the warm, gentle slide of a body against his back. The arm tightens around his waist, drawing him flush against a broad, muscular chest. If he closes his eyes, if he doesn’t turn around, he can almost pretend he is in the arms of a lover, someone he has come to willingly.

Someone he actually chooses to be with.

He opens his eyes when he feels Bucky slide his mouth over his shoulder, pressing small kisses up to his neck and then his nape. “Come on, sweetheart. What’s going on in that mind of yours?”

Tony smiles mirthlessly. “I’m going home. You’re done with me, aren’t you?”

The body behind him tenses and the arm presses tightly against his abdomen, almost to the point of pain. Tony can’t help but gasp, feeling Bucky’s fingers dig into his side.

A warm chuckle at his ear and Tony shivers at the gust of air against his skin.

“You’re here every night, until I say you can leave,” Bucky says. His voice is deceptively light and playful but Tony can hear the undercurrent of anger. “And, surprise, surprise – you’re staying.”

Tony grits his teeth and gathers his courage to turn around and face the other man.

“You said three times a week,” he says. “Three times a week and you’d leave them alone. Only three times a week and I can leave when you –”

Bucky’s hand, the one made of flesh and bone, curls up in Tony’s hair and pulls him down viciously until his cheek is pressed down against the sheets.  He struggles, a reflexive action for any prey animal suddenly in the jaws of its predator, but he can feel Bucky push him down with his heavy, solid body.

“For a genius, you really don’t get it, do you?” Bucky says in amusement. 

“We had an agreement.” Tony lays still but indignation boils beneath his skin. He is close, so close, to trying to push Bucky off – something he hasn’t done in a long time. “You said three–”

“That was before Pepper got knocked up.”

All at once the anger is gone. Tony feels his breath leave his body.

_How did you know? She kept it quiet! How the hell did you know?_

Over him, Bucky laughs and relaxes though his hand against Tony’s head is firm.  Tony twitches when he feels Bucky’s hips move against him, his hard flesh against his back – a sure precursor to what is about to happen.

“You’re all mine now. Free and clear.”

###

It hasn’t always been like this.

He hadn’t always been a pet to a madman.

Once upon a time, Tony had been happy. Or at least, as close an approximation as possible. His father had been a cold man, but Tony knew that he’d been proud of his only son’s accomplishments. And his mother had loved him, truly and genuinely.

Then they died and Obie had been there, a steady firm hand at his shoulder and a wise voice in his ear… until the kidnapping. Until the betrayal.

Until the concerted effort to take over his company, his father’s legacy.

It had been Steve who told him about Bucky. Tony had liked Steve once, had admired him even. He’d been one of the soldiers who had rescued him, a golden figure beside Rhodey when they’d freed him from the cave. He had depended on Steve when Rhodey wasn’t around. He’d cried on his shoulder and took comfort in the safety of his arms when the days got too hard and he was afraid of the sun coming through his hospital window.

Steve took care of him without complaint, had shown up as many days as he could to sit by Tony’s side and help him recover from the chest wound that almost killed him.

He had come to think of Steve as a friend, someone he could trust. When he had uncovered Obie’s betrayal, he had turned to Steve in confidence.

Tony should have gone to Rhodey or Pepper or Happy.

Trusting Steve had changed his life.

Sometimes, Tony wished he had died in the cave.

###

_“I have a friend. Someone I trust completely. His name is Bucky. I think he can help you.”_

Bucky was Steve’s brother, though not by blood. They had grown up together, been hungry together, enlisted together.

Bucky was sent one way and Steve, another.

When Bucky lost his arm, he came back with an honorable discharge on his record and madness in his veins. He had never recovered his mind, had lost the kindness and compassion in the desert, and gained only rage and a penchant for death.

In only a few years, while Steve remained in service, his brother had worked his way up the ranks underground. First as a simple associate, and then as a brutal enforcer, before breaking off and leading his own creation, a group of men who had once been loyal to the military but had turned their loyalty to him. His madness had earned him respect which quickly turned to fear and avoidance from his peers once they saw what he was truly capable of.

His metal arm, the hard fist that could smash bone and choke tender necks had become his hallmark.  

(Of course, Tony only found out about this later. When things had... escalated.)

_“Mob is such a dirty word, doll. I prefer organization.”_

And it was as broad and complicated as Tony’s company, with tendrils reaching to the west coast.

The first time Tony met Bucky, he’d looked askance at Steve. Bucky was handsome and younger than expected, tilting his head at Tony and slowly moving his gaze from his feet to his face before winking. He was nothing like Tony imagined – there was no dignified, gray haired boss with dead eyes behind a desk. Bucky was dashing and striking, leading Tony into his high tower office with a gentle hand at his back.

He’d poured Steve a finger of Blue Label and then a glass of ice water for Tony. Tony raised an eyebrow as he took the glass and Bucky smiled, looking boyishly sweet for a moment.

“Heard you quit for good a few months ago,” he said, sitting down on a plush leather couch across from him. “Wouldn’t want to undo all that hard work.”

Tony was charmed back then. He had been deceived by Bucky’s wide-eyed look of interest in Tony’s story, had taken the help so freely offered without hesitation for _‘only a slight fee, perhaps we could come to an agreement we can both enjoy?’_

Above all, Tony had been desperate.

Tony was willing to pay a high interest. He’d been willing to offer a percentage of his company’s profits. He knew the cost of what Bucky was offering would be high, to get Obie to back down and slink away for good, but he hadn’t realized what the true price was.

He hadn’t known, that behind the easy grin and the bespoke suit, was his own ruin.

###

It happened almost overnight.

One minute, Tony is finishing up a rough line of code in R&D and the next, he is standing in his office with the police as they tell him that Obie is dead.

_Car crash._

_On the same road as my parents._

There was a message there, Tony knew, but hadn’t considered to whom or what it meant. He hadn’t meant to send the man to his death – he wasn’t a murderer. He only wanted Obie stopped from taking over his company and selling his now unsanctioned weapons on the black market. He only wanted to make the board change its mind on a few policies.

Still more dead bodies appeared and Tony kept expecting the authorities to connect the dots to him. He read the paper and searched blogs and online outlets every hour on the hour for any hint of wrong doing at Stark Industries.

But nothing happened and nothing appeared.

For weeks, Tony lain awake at night, sleepless with anxiety and guilt. He felt the weight of the lives ended before their time, heavy on his chest. He gave the dead men’s families triple what they expected to receive and created foundations and charities in their names. He barely ate, could barely sit still, and the disbelief on Steve’s face when Tony spoke to him was enough to send him into a panic.

_“I never wanted this, Steve. You said he could help! This isn’t any better than what Obie did!”_

Tony is a genius. He creates things that are decades ahead of their time and leads the market by the nose. But he is not sly or cunning or cold. He is clever but not cruel.

This was all so far beyond him.

“It was the only way, Tony,” Bucky told him. The man appeared in his penthouse suite one evening, standing in the doorway with his tie undone around his collar and his hands in his pockets, sleeves rolled up to the elbow. Without context, he is unassuming. Casually handsome, a man coming home after a long day at the office. “They weren’t going to give in, no matter what I said. Those men, they were greedy. They would have destroyed you. This was the cleanest way to handle our business.”

“What do you want?” Tony asked then. He was tired and weak and tormented and he was sure Bucky would ask for more than he could give, for the keys to his kingdom, for more blood on his hands.

Bucky had simply smiled.

###

Tony looks at his reflection in the bathroom mirror and forces himself to look, _really look_ at what he has become.

There are bruises, old and new, around his wrists and forearms, his back, his thighs, shoulders and neck. Bite marks litter his skin, raised abrasions caused by cuffs and rope. He is sore nearly everywhere, and he wants to throw up at the thought of what he’s done.

At what’s been done to him.

There is a knock at the door and Tony decides he doesn’t care who sees him. He is wasted, a shadow of a man, and he doesn’t answer or look up when he hears footsteps.

“Tony, you left your door wide open outside and I…”

It is a familiar voice and he relaxes slightly, though not by much.

“Oh my God, Tony?”

Tony washes his hands and then dampens a wash cloth, meaning to rub off the sweat and spit and other fluids he doesn’t want to think about on his skin. He’ll take a shower soon, once his knees feel strong enough to hold him up for longer than a few minutes.

_I could always sit on the floor._

_Or let myself drown._

“What happened to you?” Steve asks. Tony can hear the hitch in his breath. There is no disgust in his voice but Tony is numb to shame at this point. “Who…? Was it Bucky? Does he…? Jesus, Tony, how long?”

Tony runs the cloth over his face and feels the strain in his jaw. Bucky always likes using his mouth and tonight had been no different.

Bucky had felt like celebrating.

“You know what he does,” Tony says, glancing up at Steve’s reflection, standing behind him in a suit with his hair neatly combed. Steve is in juxtaposition to his own state – the messy hair and mottled skin. “You’ve always known, haven’t you?”

“I haven’t – I never would have let him touch you!” Steve says heatedly.

“I think we both know what your brother has been doing this whole time.”

The blood seems to drain from Steve’s already pale face and he reaches out to Tony, placing a gentle hand on his bare shoulder. Tony pauses for a moment – it has been a long time since anyone else except Bucky has touched him, skin to skin.

He shakes off Steve’s hand.

He keeps scrubbing.

“Why don’t you run?” Steve’s voice is anguished. Tony smiles slightly at the ease in which Steve accepts knowing what Bucky does to Tony. His voice lowers, almost to a whisper. “If you need help, I could –”

“Like you helped me before?” Tony huffs. He puts down the wash cloth and then reaches for his towel on the marble counter.  “Nah, think I’ll pass on your brand of help. I’ve learned my lesson, trust me.”

“Tony –“

“He threatened Pepper,” Tony says. He can feel the faint tendrils of anger build in his chest and he finally turns to Steve and looks him in the eyes. “She’s three months along, hasn’t even told anyone except me and Happy, and he knew, _he knew_. And he said…”

Tony trails off, looks down at the towel around his waist. It doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing matters except keeping Bucky away from Pepper, away from Happy, Rhodey and anyone else that might draw his ire. He’ll do his part to keep them safe.

“I’m sorry.”

Tony shakes his head. “Are you? You’re the one who sent me to him in the first place, Rogers. You must have known what he was capable of.”

Steve shakes his head. “I thought… I knew his stint overseas changed him. He was never… I thought he would buy out Obie. Blackmail him maybe, at the most. Help you replace some of the board. I didn’t think it would turn out like this.”

Tony doesn’t believe him.

###

The first time, Tony had tried to fight.

Bucky had come after him in his own home, dragged him to his bedroom –

_“We’re gonna do this right, doll. I’m going to do right by you.”_

– and shoved him face down into the mattress. Tony tried to kick, to bite, to swing at Bucky but the other man had only laughed as if they were playing a game. The metal arm combined with the weight of his body was enough to keep Tony, who only ran for exercise and had trouble keeping weight on, on his stomach. He tried to scream but Bucky pressed his face down into his sheets until he couldn’t breathe, the other man’s fingers tight against his scalp.

“This is what I want, Tony,” Bucky said into his ear. “You keep your legs open for me like a good boy, you keep your mouth open just for me, and we’ll call it even.”

“Fuck off!” Tony kept struggling until he felt Bucky’s knee dig in his lower back and he gasped in pain, tears gathering in his eyes.

“Three times a week,” Bucky went on calmly, as if Tony wasn’t clutching at the sheets in agony. “Three nights in my bed and everyone stays alive.”

Tony stilled suddenly when Bucky jerked his head back, cutting off his breath. “Three nights, one for your dame Pepper, one for Happy and one for your good pal, Rhodey. He’s shippin’ out soon, yeah? Wouldn’t want someone to accidentally pull a trigger and aim for his head, would we? Friendly fire is a bitch to deal with.”

In stunned silence, Tony froze even as Bucky moved off him and rolled him onto his back. He sat on his heels at Tony’s side, blue eyes bright, grinning widely.

Tony stared up at Bucky in horror.

“You… you wouldn’t. Not them, not… Not them,” Tony pleaded. “Please.”

Bucky’s expression grew soft and he placed a hand over Tony’s thigh, squeezing lightly. “Aw, don’t cry, doll. All you have to do is be good for me now and they’ll stay safe. After all, I did what you wanted in the first place, didn’t I?”

“I didn’t want anyone dead. I never said I wanted –“

“They’re dead now and not a problem anymore.” Bucky reached down and ran his fingers through Tony’s hair. This time his touch was gentle. “I took care of them for you.”

His grip tightened suddenly and he forced Tony to bare his throat before leaning down and running his tongue over his skin.

“And I’ll take care of you and your friends. As long as you stay good for me. Understand?”

Tony understands.

###

Tony does everything Bucky wants him to. There is no fight, no struggle in his limbs when Bucky ties him up or grips him too tightly. He never says no when Bucky pushes into him, makes him swallow, or swallows him down with a metal arm against his hips.

Three times a week – Pepper, Happy and Rhodey.

They are worth it.

###

Tony learns quickly: it doesn’t stay in the bedroom.

Though he never sees them, he knows Bucky’s men are watching him. It is in the little ordinary details of his life that Tony comes to find the deepest horror.

One day, he smiles and winks at a new barista at his favorite coffee shop, not thinking at all about the action. It is only polite, after she fumbles his change, blushing and giggling through their brief exchange.

The next day the girl is gone. He doesn’t even have to order when his coffee – perfectly brewed with the right amount of sugar and cream, is handed to him by a grim-faced man who doesn’t meet his eyes and says nothing.

At a cocktail party, a woman he’d just met laughs and touches his wrist, leaning in as she speaks. It is harmless flirting, something he entertains on occasion but never takes seriously, despite what the tabloids say. He walks away shortly, forgetting he’d even met her until later when he sees the ambulance outside and the woman crying hysterically over a broken arm, the bones visibly cracked in several places.

She shrieks when Tony walks up to see what had happened.

There are new suits in his closet, in colors and fabrics he didn’t buy. Food on his office desk with a note –

_“Gotta feed you up, doll. I don’t like it when you forget to eat.”_

– dinner reservations on his calendar that he doesn’t remember making.

Pepper notices the change in him, fussing and worrying over him, but Tony lies to her with a smile and a wave of his hand. Everything is fine, nothing is wrong. He is just tired, not sleeping enough because of all the coffee he drinks, those idiots in R&D are always messing up, the deadlines for the new phones are coming up too fast and he has to focus.

Tony says nothing when she admires the flowers that come every week, the mysterious cards scrawled on with dates and times and nothing else.

Tony says nothing at all.

###

“Making Pepper your CEO was a smart idea,” Bucky says to him one night, across the candlelight once the waiter walks away. “Frees you up. Gives us more time together.”

Tony sits, tense and stiff in his chair, clutching the napkin on his lap. His jaw is clenched so tight, it is several seconds before he can speak.

“I didn’t do it for _us_ ,” Tony spits out. “There is no _us_.”

Bucky’s smile falters but doesn’t disappear. “You spend the night at my place all the time.”

Tony is incredulous. “We have an agreement. Three times a week. That’s all. You actually think any of this is something I want to happen?”

Bucky’s expression shifts and for a moment, Tony feels afraid for his life. His gaze becomes blank and unsettlingly cold as he regards Tony. It is like being watched by a snake or an insect – no emotion, no human warmth or understanding. Only a flat, considering stare.

It is gone in the blink of an eye.

“You know, we met years ago, back during the Houthi rebellion in Yemen,” Bucky says, taking a sip of his water. He never drinks alcohol in front of Tony, out of _consideration_. “I was there, special forces. You were providing weapons support, of course. I watched you take apart a modified M16A2 5.56 rifle and put it back together in under a minute.”

He laughs and dabs at the corner of his mouth delicately. “It was fucking hot. You stood there in your fancy clothes and made us all want to sit up and beg, just with your hands. Showed us you were more than a pretty face in a suit.”

Tony stares at him as he continues. “You shook my hand – the one still attached to me. Thanked me for my service. Told me to be safe. You meant it too, I could tell. Said the same words to every man but you meant it each time and I thought, damn – he ain’t ever gonna look my way again.”

Tony feels light-headed suddenly, the pieces suddenly coming together. His voice sounds faraway to his own ears, shock taking him out of himself. “Did Steve know? Did… you and Steve plan– “

“Stevie knew I thought you were gorgeous. I couldn’t shut my mouth up about you every time we got a chance to talk,” Bucky says happily. It seems so incongruous, Bucky’s seemingly cheerful, sweet demeanor now compared to the barely in control monster who pushed Tony down at night, or gave orders to break an innocent woman’s arm, or take a man’s life.  “But if you’re asking if he planned this out? Get your old mentor to betray you? Come on, Tony. Our Stevie wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“So it was just my dumb luck?” Tony asks. “That he rescued me? That he led me to you.”

Bucky’s smile returned in full force. “Can’t fight fate, doll. After all these years, I finally get to have you. After all I’ve been through, everything I lost… I’m not letting you go.”

Tony snaps and he lashes out before he can stop himself. “You are _insane_. This has nothing to do with fate and everything to do with you being a fucking sociopath. I’m not your reward. You’re not owed a person. The only reason I let you touch me is because you have a knife at my friends’ throats and I will be damned if I let you – “

Their food arrives and Tony shuts his mouth. Bucky says nothing while the waiter is there but Tony can feel his gaze on him like a weight. Once their food is set and the waiter has once again left them alone, Bucky picks up his knife and gestures at Tony carelessly.

“Eat your food. You’re gonna need your strength for later.”

###

Nothing happens from his outburst. Tony waits, but the days pass and he begins to breathe easy. And then –

_Oh God. I’m so sorry._

Tony misses the funeral but sends flowers and his heartfelt condolences. Happy takes a month-long leave to grieve his mother.

“Was it you?” Tony asks Bucky later. “Happy’s mom… The accident… Did you?”

Bucky looks at him for a moment before pressing a soft kiss at his temple.

“You hurt my feelings, doll. Don’t do it again.”

###

When Pepper tells him she’s pregnant, that her and Happy are having a baby, Tony’s heart stops.

He is happy for them, he truly is, and he hugs them both, wishing them well and promising to be the best uncle to their future son or daughter.

Inside he knows – it’s only another soul he has put in danger just by association. Another life that hangs in the balance because of him.

###

“I could kill myself, you know,” Tony says. “I could end this right now, and you’d never touch me again.”

Bucky looks down at him with his large blue eyes, his knees caging Tony’s legs in. His wide full mouth quirks up, as if Tony’s just told a joke.

“I wonder how long Pepper would last under me. Of course, you’d be dead so you wouldn’t care.”

When Tony cries, when he finally, _finally_ gives up, Bucky curls around him, wrapping his arm – flesh and metal, around his smaller frame and tucks him against his chest.

“There you go, you get it now, don’t you?” Bucky says, running a hand soothingly down Tony’s back. “I’ve had you from the very beginning. I’ve always had you. But you get it now. Everything’s going to be okay, Tony. Everything is going to be grand.”

###

Later, Bucky presses a kiss against his lips and smiles.

“You’re moving in tomorrow. No more of this back and forth. We’ll get to have each other all the time now.”

Tony says nothing.

  _ **End**_

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I have a thing for messed up Bucky/Tony. Once again, I wrote this at work (and tried my best to self-beta) so please let me know if you see a correction (grammar, misspellings, etc.) that needs to be made.


End file.
